Probe continues into North Sea gas leak

Investigations into the cause of the leak are continuring

FRANK URQUHART

AN investigation was continuing today into the cause of a gas leak which has resulted in the shutdown of production from three North Sea oil and gas installations.

AN investigation was continuing today into the cause of a gas leak which has resulted in the shutdown of production from three North Sea oil and gas installations.

A total of 92 oilworkers on the North Cormorant platform, operated by Taqa Bratani, were evacuated in the early hours of Sunday morning following a gas alert on the installation, 110 miles North east of Shetland.

Production has also been shutdown as a precautionary measure at the neighbouring Tern and Eider platforms which also feed their hydrocarbon production into the North Cormorant installation.

A spokeswoman for Taqa said that the North Cormorant platform had been shut down and depressurised at 5.15am on Sunday “as a result of an indication of gas” in the drilling area of the platform. All 202 personnel on board were safe and well but, as a precautionary measure, 92 non-essential crew had been airlifted by helicopter to nearby Taqa installations.

She continued: “The platform’s well operations have been made safe and the situation is under control. The exact cause of the incident is not yet known however, our number one priority is the safety and welfare of our people on board the facility as well as the surrounding environment.”

The three platforms normally have a combined daily production of 25.000 barrels of oil equivalent.

Oil is imported to North Cormorant from both the nearby Tern and Eider platforms where it is processed before the oil is then routed to the Cormorant Alpha platform for onward transmission through the Brent Pipeline System to Sullom Voe on Shetland.

In November last year 134 non-essential workers were airlifted from the North Cormorant after diesel was found to have contaminated the installation’s fresh water supply

In March this year Total’s Elgin platform had to be completely abandoned because of a leak of potentially explosive gas and condensate.

And Wullie (correct) Wallace, the North east regional industrial organiser for the Unite union, said: “Unite is concerned that this is the second evacuation in the North Sea due to gas leaks in the last six months.

“We welcome the prompt action to evacuate non essential workers but the safety of the remaining workers and the wider North Sea workforce must be of paramount importance and is a source of great concern.”

He added: “Taqa should be investigating the leak and no return to normal working can take place until the safety of the workforce is assured. The HSE should also be fully involved in any investigations.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.